Delivering Value to our Clients

Seeking professional financial advice can greatly benefit your long-term financial health. While some may hesitate due to the personal nature of finances or the misconception that it's only for the wealthy, it's important to see time spent with financial planning as an investment itself.  Just like with medical or legal matters, financial professionals offer tailored insights that can save you money in the long run.

In today's financial climate, marked by high inflation and rising interest rates, the expertise of financial professionals is essential.  They can help develop a holistic financial plan, diversify investments, plan for retirement, save tax, and navigate market volatility, ultimately leading to better financial health.

At SGWM, our mission is to deliver expert advice at exceptional value, merging the best of both traditional and modern approaches.

We've strategically invested in 21st-century services, seamlessly blending the advantages of our time-honoured offerings with cutting-edge technology and we work with our clients to create personalised investment plans, whilst identifying opportunities to help grow our clients' wealth. We can help with managing money and mapping out plans, including retirement and estate planning, and provide emotional support - especially during challenging economic conditions.

Here are just three of the current technologies we utilise to enhance the value and service we provide to our clients.

• Retirement cash flow modelling

Retirement planning is of utmost importance, regardless of your income or wealth. It ensures a steady income stream after retirement and provides financial security for you and your loved ones.

Our cash flow modelling software assists you in analysing your current financial situation by creating a customised plan to ensure your retirement meets your long-term goals. By assessing your current and projected wealth, income and expenses, retirement cash flow modelling can help you understand your current and potential future finances.

Key reasons why retirement cash flow planning is crucial:

Avoid running out of money: Planning helps you calculate the savings rate required to support your desired lifestyle during retirement, ensuring you don't run out of money.

Setting retirement income goals: This involves determining your retirement income goals and identifying the necessary steps to achieve them. This allows you to plan for various financial sources and secure a comfortable retirement.

Creating a regular flow of income: A well-structured and regularly reviewed plan enables you to create a regular flow of income after retirement. This fixed income substitutes your pre-retirement salary, ensuring financial stability.

Strategic investment decisions: Retirement planning involves making strategic investment decisions to achieve specific savings goals. This helps in maximising returns and growing your retirement fund over time.

Financial security: A solid retirement plan can provide yourself and your loved ones with financial security. This is particularly important as more than social security benefits are needed to sustain your desired lifestyle.

Enjoying a comfortable retirement: A comprehensive retirement plan has the potential to allow you to enjoy a comfortable retirement, free from financial worries. It provides the means to pursue your desired activities, travel and maintain a high standard of living.

Reviewing existing pension arrangements: Regularly reviewing your existing pension arrangements and taking the required steps can significantly affect the amount of money you'll accumulate for retirement. Seeking professional help can ease the process and ensure you make informed decisions.

How retirement cash flow modelling can work for you:

Managing accumulated wealth: If you have accumulated wealth, retirement cash flow modelling can assist you in effectively managing your financial position and making informed decisions as you retire.

Long-term planning: Cash flow planning is especially beneficial if you have long-term personal or business objectives. It lets you determine how much you need to save and the returns required to meet those goals.

Care home fees planning: Cash flow modelling can also be used for planning care home fees, helping you understand the financial implications of such expenses and prepare accordingly.

Our retirement cash flow planning process involves:

• Assessing your current financial situation, including income, expenses, assets and liabilities.
• Understanding your future financial commitments and goals.
• Creating a lifetime cash flow modelling plan tailored to your needs.
• Providing a comprehensive analysis of your income, expenditure and potential future cash flow.
• Working towards achieving and maintaining financial independence.
• Adequately addressing the financial consequences of death or disability.
• Minimising tax liabilities through effective planning.
• Developing an investment strategy for your capital and surplus income.
• Identifying Inheritance Tax issues that may impact your beneficiaries.

Answering critical questions

Ultimately, retirement cash flow modelling helps answer critical questions such as whether your savings and assets are sufficient to support your aspirations, if you can retire early, if your investment risk is appropriate and if you will have enough money to sustain yourself throughout retirement. And, if it turns out that your cash flow plan falls short, don't worry!  We have various retirement planning strategies to help get you back on track.

• Personal Finance Portal (PFP)

Advances in technology mean our clients increasingly interact with us across multiple channels; face to face, on the telephone and online.  Our Personal Finance Portal (PFP) enables you to see your complete financial picture in seconds, at a time and place to suit you.

With data security our highest priority, connection to your information is encrypted and no data is transmitted between your device and the portal, making for a fast, safe and more efficient exchange of messages, data and documents.

Accessible online 24/7, 365 days of the year across your PC, mobile and tablet, the PFP gives you access to your long-term savings and investment information in an easy to use, online format.

You can also update your personal details, meaning we will be notified and can respond proactively if your circumstances require financial review.  You can store all your personal financial documents such as statements, ID and paperwork, which is far more secure than keeping paper copies in your filing cabinet or on your computer which could be hacked or fail.

Accounts, transactions and balances are refreshed automatically so, where we’re able to obtain electronic valuations, the information displayed in your PFP will always be up-to-date and displayed in a way that’s easy to understand.

As a business we are committed to finding ways to reduce our impact on the earth’s natural resources, so the PFP has a positive impact on the environment too, because accessing data electronically reduces paper dependency, energy and water pollution.

• DocuSign

We recently invested in document signing (DocuSign) software.  Replacing the often-lengthy manual signing process, an ‘e-signature’ speeds up the agreement process, and is the most quick and efficient way to send and sign documents online legally and securely in a matter of minutes. 

It’s exceptionally simple and straightforward to use and, once you have set up a DocuSign account with a password and security questions, it only takes a few seconds to sign a document using your ‘e-signature’.

To discuss how you could benefit from our expert advice and our traditional-meets-modern approach, please GET IN TOUCH

Source data:

[1] Surveys by Opinium commissioned by Royal London between 1–6 March 2023, with 218 financial advisers and 4,000 nationally